January 29, 1920] 



NATURE 



581 



VERTEBRATE REMAINS IN THE 

 CAVERNS OF GRIMALDI. 



pROF. MARCELLIN BOULE has completed his 

 -^ studies of the remains of vertebrate animals found 

 with primitive man in the caverns of Grimaldi, and the 

 final results of his work have just been published as 

 the concluding part (fasc. iv.) of the first volume 

 of the Prince of Monaco's " Les Grottes de Grimaldi 

 (Baouss^-Rouss(^)." The new instalment deals with 

 the Carnivora, Insectivora, Cheiroptera, and Rodentia, 

 and various fragments of birds and lower vertebrates, 

 and ends with a valuable general summary. Besides 

 the technical descriptions of the fossils, illustrated by 

 beautiful plates in heliogravure, Prof. Boule con- 

 tinually introduces short discussions of the relation- 

 ships and distribution of the various animals with 

 which he deals, adding several maps and some 

 genealogical diagrams. He has therefore produced a 

 most interesting and readable treatise on the Euro- 

 pean Pleistocene vertebrate fauna, which we com- 

 mend to the notice of both geologists and zoologists. 

 He specially emphasises the importance of the dis- 

 covery that in the low latitude of the south coast of 

 France there is the same succession of Pleistocene 

 mammalian faunas that has alreadv been observed 

 throughout the rest of Central and Western Europe, 

 iln the bottom layers on the floor of the caverns of 

 Grimaldi there are the animals ot the warm Chellean 

 episode (Elephas antiquus. Rhinoceros Mercki, hippo- 

 potamus, etc.); in the next layers is the cold fauna 

 of the Acheulian and Mousterian (glutton, ermine, 

 marmot, reindeer, etc.); in the upper layers are the 

 ordinary mammals of historic times. Among the 

 animals now described Prof. Boule considers he can 

 recognise every gradation between the Pliocene bears 

 and the modern brown bear; he also sees some ap- 

 proach to a Pliocene species in the Pleistocene leopard. 

 He agrees with other observers that the wild cat most 

 nearly approaches that of Africa, now named Felis 

 ocreata. Equally interesting is his account of the 

 fossil lynx, which, proves to be exactly intermediate 

 between the northern and the Spanish races of the 

 lynx at the present day. 



APPARATUS FOR VAPOUR-PRESSURE 

 DETERMINA TIONS. 

 ■p\IRECT measurement of the vapour-pressure of 

 -'-' solutions for the estimation of molecular weights 

 has never been much used, Raoult's barometric method 

 being too cumbersome for general use. A simple 

 apparatus for this purpose is, however, described by 

 Mr. Robert Wright in the Journal of the Chemical 

 Society for October. It consists of a flask (150 c.c.) 

 and test-tube (20 cm.X3 cm.) connected by a delivery 

 tube fused into well-fitting glass stoppers. This 

 delivery tube is provided with a stopcock just above 

 the flask ; it reaches nearly to the bottom of the test- 

 tube, but does not pass through the stopper of the 

 flask. The stopper to the test-tube is provided with 

 an exit tube carrying a stopcock. To carry cut a 

 vapour-pressure determination, a weighed quantity of 

 the solute is placed in the test-tube, flask and tube are 

 half-filled with solvent, and the apparatus connected 

 together and evacuated by means of a filter-pump 

 attached to the exit tube of the test-tube in order to 

 boil all the air out of both solvent and solution. 

 Expulsion of the air is facilitated by gently warming 

 the flask. After exhaustion is complete both stop- 

 cocks are closed, and the apparatus left for two or 

 three hours to attain the ordinary temperature. Then 

 the tap above the flask is gently opened, and the 

 extent to which the column of liquid in the delivery 

 tube is depressed below the level of the solution in 



NO. 2522, VOL. 104] 



the test-tube is a measure of the vapour-pressure. 

 The observed depression must be corrected for capil- 

 larity. The test-tube is then removed and weighed in 

 order to ascertain the mass of the solution, and if the 

 latter is concentrated its density must be measured. 

 As a solvent water is unsuitable, alcohol and carbon 

 tetrachloride are satisfactory, but benzene cannot be 

 used because of the action of its vapour on the tap- 

 lubricant. 



EXPERIMENTS ON TRAIN RESISTANCE. 



'T* O railway engineers Bulletin no of the Uni- 

 -'- versify of Illinois is of special interest, because 

 it contains a report of some experiments on train 

 resistance carried out by the experimental station of 

 the University in co-operation with the Illinois Cen- 

 tral Railway. Tests were made to measure the resist- 

 ance of passenger trains in service up to speeds of 

 seventy miles per hour. The main results are em- 

 bodied in a set of curves. The peculiarity brought out 

 by the experiments is that the resistance is not a 

 function of the speed alone, but a function of the 

 speed and the car-weight. The inference from the 

 experiments is that, other things being equal, the 

 heavier the car the less the resistance. 



The results are likely to differ from those obtained 

 by experiments on English railways, because the track 

 is different, the standard of maintenance is probably 

 different, and also the construction of the cars. Ex- 

 periments on train resistance on British railways have 

 been made by Sir John Aspinall, In these experi- 

 ments it was found that the train resistance is a func- 

 tion of the speed and the length of the train. Probably 

 if the Illinois experiments could be re-examined in 

 terms of the length of the train, the Aspinall formula 

 might be found to fit the data obtained, because 

 increase in car-weight generally means increase in 

 length of train ; one is the function of the other. 



Our American friends realise the national advan- 

 tage to be gained by co-operation between university 

 and railway. They have an experimental station 

 organised and maintained by a university co-operating 

 with a railway company in an experimental research. 

 Similar relations might be hoped for between uni- 

 versity and railway in this country. There is no 

 doub,t that both would gain considerably by mutual 

 co-operation. 



THE EVOLUTION OF BOTANICAL 

 RESEARCH.^- 



A MEETING of the American Association in St. 

 Louis is of special interest to botanists. When 

 this city was little more than a frontier town. Dr. 

 George Englemann became one of its citizens. In 

 spite of his duties as a successful physician, he became 

 one of our greatest botanists ; in fact, in the days 

 when taxonomy was practically the whole of botany, 

 and our virgin flora was being explored, the great 

 American trio of botanists was Asa Gray (of Cam- 

 bridge, Mass.), John Torrey (of New York), and George 

 Englemann (of St. Louis). Englemann 's distinction 

 was that he published no general botanical works, but 

 selected a series of the most difficult problems in 

 taxonomy, and in a masterly way organised for us 

 many perplexing groups. With these groups his name 

 will always be associated. To a botanist, therefore, 

 St. Louis means the home of George Englemann. 



There is another association also for the botanist. 

 St. Louis is the home of one of our great botanical 



1 Presidential address delivered at the St. Louis meeting of the Americaa 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, December, 1919, by Prof. 

 John M. Coulter. 



